Clumsy with chopsticks but can't live without them... ** I don't post English translations of Japanese recipes without permissions from the recipe authors. But feel free to contact me about the dishes you're interested in.

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"OBACHAN" means a "middle-aged woman" or "aunty" in Japanese.
.*************************. Having moved back to my hometown in April 2009, I live in one of the desperately underpopulated areas in Japan now. Let me share my life in a real countryside with aging parents living in the same house. And here in Muroto -- the place where I chose to live -- you can hear the heartbeat of the Earth! ;)

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Sunday, September 30, 2007

If I’m not mistaken, making this chrysanthemum-shaped wagashi is one of the tasks of grade-1 skill test for wagashi confectioners in Japan. This piece of art is called “hasami (scissors) - giku (chrysanthemum),” and as its name indicates, it clearly shows how skillfully the confectioner can use the scissors. There seem to be certain rules about how many rows of how many petals (maybe usually 20 petals?) have to be made.

The dough is nerikiri dough, and the special scissors look like these (scroll down). It must take a lot of effort to make the petals beautifully and evenly, adjusting their size properly so that each row has 20 petals… That is something I can never do.

At this wagashi shop, they usually don’t have hasami-giku on display, but you can call them and place a pre-order. Ever since I found out about that, I had been wanting to get one, and I finally did so today. This elaborate wagashi was twice as expensive as the ones I usually buy to post about on this blog, but it was worth it. :)